According to the data release by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) today, the economic growth was 6.9 percent in 2013-14 as per the new series of national accounts with base year of 2011-12.

The growth in 2014-15 was lower than the advance estimates of 7.4 percent released in February.

The fourth quarter (January-March) of last fiscal saw the economy grow at 7.5 percent, better than 6.6 percent recorded for the previous three months, October-December.

The Gross Value Added (GVA), a new concept introduced by CSO to measure the economic activity, rose by 7.2 percent in 2014-15 compared 6.6 percent in the previous fiscal.

The manufacturing sector GVA rose by 7.1 percent during the year as against 5.3 percent in 2013-14. Similarly, the output of electricity, gas, water supply and other utility services rose by 7.9 percent as against 4.8 percent a year ago.

However, the farm and allied sectors grew by a meagre 0.2 percent compared to 3.7 percent a year ago. The output of mining and quarrying sector too slipped to 2.4 percent from 5.4 percent a year ago.

While the fourth quarter GDP growth rate at 7.5 percent was better than China's 7.4 percent, making India the fastest growing economy in the world, for the full fiscal it was a tad lower than the Chinese growth rate.

Jaitley further said that with improvement in agriculture and exports, India could achieve 9 percent growth rate.